


The Bridle and the Spur

by Prochytes



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26651062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: Two unalike witches, down the years.
Relationships: Triss Merigold & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	The Bridle and the Spur

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the whole of S1; probably inconsistent with the canon of the books. Canon-typical levels of swearing.

1.

The first moonlight was waxing the holly leaves, and moths were beginning their tipsy reels in the gloam outside the tower room. Within the room stood a woman with violet eyes. She was presenting her right palm, as she had since before the setting of the sun, so that it all but touched the other right palm that was held out to mirror it. The sliver of space separating the two hands bulged and twisted, as the equipoise of conjured Chaos held between them tortured the darkling air.

The other right palm began to tremble. The woman who held it aloft broke snatches of hissed words between her clenched teeth. Her violet-eyed rival recognized the expedients of exhaustion, of the wrestler who writhes so that her weary back may not betray her. She smiled.

“I cannot hold.” Triss Merigold winced, and tottered back a step. “You were always stronger; I cannot hold.”

“Good.” Yennefer turned to inspect the bookshelf, while Triss wiped sweat from her brow; blood from her mouth; and generally sought composure. It was never Yennefer’s pleasure to look on weakness, whether her own or anybody else’s. “Hope you haven’t pissed yourself. It’s rough to lose a mageduel – or so I’m told.”

“By the terms of the duel, Temeria surrenders its claim to the promontory of Velwick. Aedirn’s counter-claim will be acknowledged in the morning.” Triss squared her shoulders. “I must below, and tell Foltest that I failed.”

“To determine such claims by mageduel is archaic, and degrading. These princelings pit us against each other like fighting cocks. Aretuza should forbid it.” Yennefer stopped flipping through a tome, and looked back at Triss. “Why?”

“It is a custom of long standing. I warned Foltest that I was surely overmatched. But he will not be seen to buck the Continent’s traditions, all the more so when his own house…” Triss’s mouth snapped shut.

“Still so damnably discreet.” Yennefer replaced the book. “But that’s not what I meant. I could feel the toll our contest took on you. Why strive so painfully and so long, knowing you would not win, that a king might crow on a spit of barren land?”

“It was my duty. Who would do so, if I would not?”

“Duty. Obedience. Decorum. It’s all a cage.”

“We are mages.” The brown gaze was as steady as it ever was. “There is much to be said for what constrains and binds us.”

“That’s why you’ll always lose, Triss. The bottle’s great, but where’s the fucking lightning?” Yennefer sighed. “Come; join me in some wine. We’ll tell Foltest his bad news together.”

2.

“You should be dead.”

“I weary of being told what I should be,” Yennefer hissed.

Triss rolled her eyes. “Well, you should also be sitting, or else the rug will suffer.”

“I will not be coddled like some stripl…” Yennefer buckled, and vomited copiously on the rug.

“You must rest.” Triss insinuated a shoulder under Yennefer’s arm, and guided her to a chair. “You have sorely overtaxed yourself.”

“I merely attempted a spell beyond my reach.” Yennefer arched her neck back against the headrest, and closed her eyes. “We’ve all done that.”

“We have not all attempted to ride a djinn. That’s what those sigils you’ve daubed on your skin mean, is it not?”

“I…” Yennefer’s shoulders slumped. “I had no choice.”

“Tell me at least that you allowed yourself a moment’s respite _between_ botching a suicidal ritual and portalling here.”

“The interim activities were not restful.” Triss would have said that Yennefer was blushing, if she had believed such a prodigy to be possible.

“I have preparations that will soothe you, while you recoup your strength.” Triss began to gather flasks from her shelves. She paused for a moment, eyes averted. “We both know that I should be delivering you to Aretuza. Weakened as you are, you could not stay me.”

Yennefer’s chuckle stumbled into a cough. “You won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because, Triss, you can feel as well as I do that a cold wind is coming. Once it arrives, you’re going to have to decide which of your pretty prisons – virtue, fealty, the Brotherhood – you cherish most. They won’t all be concentric any more.”

“Perhaps.” Triss went on collecting vials. “When I see you now, Yen, I am afraid. All becomes a backdrop; all, but you. Chaos loves the way you speak its lines.”

“You fear for the player who struts her hour upon this stage?” Yennefer waved an accommodating hand.

“I fear for the boards that groan beneath her tread.”

3.

“So,” said Triss, looking out over Sodden Hill, “you have met Geralt of Rivia.”

Yennefer snorted. “Only too often.”

“What do you make of him?”

“One who cannot think past the legacy of choices that were made for him, long ago. One whose potential for power is matched only by his self-absorption.”

“Hmm.”

Yennefer’s eyes narrowed. Down the years, she had slowly reached the disquieting conclusion that Triss was both as smart as her and utterly uninvested in proving it. Yennefer was not sure which of those two things was more annoying. “You, no doubt, see in him one driven to paint a good deed on a tiny canvas; one who places arbitrary limits on himself, that he may secure the smallest possible sum to all of pain and trouble. Such is the way of mirrors.” Yennefer rubbed at her scarred wrists. “I never saw one I didn’t want to smash.”

“Do you know how Tissaia compared us, when she spoke to her later students?” Triss’s gaze was on the figure of the Rectoress far below, giving orders as to the entrenchments. “She said that you needed the bridle; I, the spur.”

“Comparing us to horseflesh. How characteristic.” Yennefer shrugged. “There’s truth in what she said. Yet look where we find ourselves, now, at the finish: you, warring against the edict of the Brotherhood; I, standing with you, at honour’s call, in a hollow crusade I don’t think we can win. Fate shows perfect form in how it fucks us.”

Triss smiled, her eyes distant. “I remember a girl one night in Aretuza, long ago, who catalogued sixteen colours not found in the phenomenal Creation, before she passed out giggling in Sabrina’s lap.”

“I remember the girl who – reluctantly – had told her what herbs one pounded together to do that.”

“I can think of worse company, for one’s last day.”

Yennefer sighed, and nodded her assent.

FINIS

**Author's Note:**

> The image in the title may first have been used by the orator Isocrates, of his pupils Ephorus and Theopompus (Cicero, _Brutus_ 204), but is also reported of other teachers and students in the ancient world.


End file.
